


Anchoress

by elijah_was_a_prophet



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27257203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elijah_was_a_prophet/pseuds/elijah_was_a_prophet
Summary: Statement of Crystal Watts, regarding the anchorite’s cell at the Church of St John, Adwick Upon Dearn. Original statement given October 1st, 1973.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Anchoress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [syrupwit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/syrupwit/gifts).



Crystal Watts. 26. Student. I don’t feel comfortable stating that. Can I begin?

Earlier this spring I was offered an opportunity by a member of the facility to visit a real 13th century anchorite’s cell near Mexborough, in the village of Adwick Upon Dearn. It was not officially open to the public, however, the students over at the archaeology department were going to be on a drinking spree that weekend and Dr. Himmel had permission to visit. He’d made the case that since my thesis was on anchorites it might aid me in my studies to see a real life example of how they lived, and not one of the show cells fancied up for the tourists.

I agreed, and the weekend of April 25th I made the drive to the site. He wasn’t there, but I had been warned in advance that might be the case, and so I sat on the hood of my car and waited. Twenty minutes went by with no sign of him, at which point I decided to take a look myself. The entry to the cell was poorly lit, so I flicked on my industrial torch, and the ground was slick from where it’d just rained. In a village that far out it’s very quiet at night, and there was only the wet smack of my boots on the grass. St John’s loomed beside as I walked into the back section where the cell sat. The door was propped upon by a bit of fallen masonry. 

Inside the cell was dark. There was a single barred window where the attendants would have passed in food and the priest communion, but the angle of the moon made it so no light came in from the inside. I cast my light over the brick, looking for any sign that someone had once lived and died in this place, but saw nothing save one detail. There was an odd discrepancy on the wall that was shared with the church, a piece of clearly modern plywood propped against a spot where the surrounding brickwork was uneven and broken. Curiosity got the better of me. I pushed it over.

There was a hole in the wall.

A hole down where one should not have existed, since according to the placement I should have been seeing the left rows of pews. Shining my light I saw nothing notable about the hole other than its existence- it was made of the same stone as the rest of the church, with the same wear of age. There was a squeeze around two feet wide, and then below that a staircase that spiraled so sharply I could only see two or three steps.

Dr. Himmel appeared to have skipped out on our visit, however, the archaeology students clearly knew about the hole if they had covered it up. I took the chance and squeezed through legs first, almost tearing my shirt off in the process. Once I made it through that obstacle, however, it became much easier. Just walking, carefully stepping down onto stairs twenty centimeters wide. I had to turn my feet out to keep from falling and kept a grip on the central column to help.

It wasn’t until about a minute in that I realized I should have been counting the steps. From that point I started, and from my best estimation went around twelve steps per minute. It wasn’t until step sixty that I distinctly thought to myself that this was all very odd. Basements this deep from this time period tended to be built around natural cave systems, not constructed into the unyielding earth, carved up like so much roast.

However, I bought into the sunk-cost fallacy. I’d already gone at this point almost a hundred steps; if I’d spent this long walking then I wasn’t going to stop until I hit the bottom. So step by step I descended. The walls began to grow damp, and the cold nipped at my exposed face and wrists. There was no change to the stone in age or in type. Step by step. I hummed to myself, then stopped when I heard how it echoed down below. How deep was the staircase, I thought, switching which hand I held my torch in.

It slipped out of my grasp and bounced down the stairs. I heard it roll for a very long time, bouncing and cracking, and then it faded into silence. Panicked, I pressed my hand to the outer wall and found it closer than before, maybe twelve centimeters from my shoulder. There was nothing to do but take another step down, going slower so I didn’t slip. The steps grew damp, and slick, and there was nothing for me to grip that wasn’t covered in the same moisture. The stairs must have reached below the water table.

What did anchoresses think about while they were in their cells? Due to the nature of my research, I’d thought about it often, imagined sitting in the same couple of square meters for years, decades on decades, my eyes forgetting the sun, my body forgetting the skies, nothing but brick walls and quiet contemplation of the Divine. The devotion they must have felt! The love! Absolute dedication to a force unseen inspired me even if I didn’t believe in it. I read their accounts of rapture and felt a longing for a devotion that strong, to be surrounded by a comforting presence. I think that’s a normal human instinct, to want to be loved.

Centimeter by centimeter the walls closed in around me. I felt them catch on my shirt and scrape my boots. The time between each step grew larger, as I had to angle backwards until my back dragged the steps to avoid the crush of the ceiling. I knew logically at some point I would get stuck, but my mind had passed a fear of being trapped and instead passed into a desire. I had to know what was at the bottom of the staircase. 

The earth embraced me, squeezed me, held me. It knew what it was like to be loved. A recurring theme of world mythologies, I thought as I let gravity squeeze me into what was no longer steps but instead a shaft, a recurring theme was that of the earth mother-goddess, of caves as wombs and as a place of renewal. I knew this and that was why I was not frightened. The earth spoke to me in that narrow place and I was not afraid. It was the devotion I’d dreamed of, crushing and absolute. Inescapable. Around me the rocks closed, like jaws biting down. I felt my joints shift and then crack, my chest compressed, cartilage popping and breaking. It embraced me. It loved me.

I love you, I wanted to tell the earth, but it pushed the air from my lungs. A faint wave of terror hit as I realized I could not move. It was black and silent, the path above me suddenly gone as stone bore down on my head. Dirt fell into my eyes and I closed them but it continued to fall, packing around my nose and mouth. Everything was wet, and the cold came in.

Stillness. Time went by, and slowly the bands of rock and soil tightened. When not stimulated the eyes and ears begin to imagine sounds and colors that are not there. I saw sunshine and heard the sound of cars driving overhead, a silly thought since there were no highways in the village. Dirt filled my mouth with its bitter crunch, and pressed cool against my eyelids. Something gave way in my ribs and I tried to scream, the pain awakening my survival instinct. I had to dig out. I was being smothered by love.

My right arm could move a little, so I pulled it as far as I could into my body and wiggled my fingers, then pushed them upwards and tried to shift one of the patches of dirt, compressing it against my side. I got a tiny bit more space when I kicked out and shifted a rock. It turned to expose a hollow the toe of my boot fit into. The pain in my ribcage worsened when I tried to curl forwards. I almost blacked out but forced myself to keep going. 

One foot and a bit of arm, then. I’ve always had loose shoulders, and by holding my breath and rolling them back I freed my left from the press of rocks it was trapped in. There was a patch of wet dirt above my head, and I hoped that meant I could dig up through it. Bending my knees slightly, I headbutted the spot. Filthy water streamed down my hair. I pushed again and got a sliver of space. Crumbs of dirt fell off my face and out of my mouth.

I wanted to live, so I pushed. I squeezed one arm up and felt for something to grab. My fingers hit the edge of a rock. The masonry of the staircase? I wrapped and pulled, screaming, panting, squeezing through the narrow stone. My shirt and shoulder were torn open. Back in the shaft from before, I sobbed at the thought of having to climb back up the stairs before freeing my other arm and beginning the ascent. Gripping each brick, I hauled my body through the shaft, stopping every few meters to breath. Tears and dirty water fell down my face. If the descent down was into love my ascent was into hell.

I have no clue where the strength to keep going came from. No matter how long I had to lay down and breathe I always kept going, blood pounding in my ears and my bruised body. The staircase grew wider. I was able to crouch, and then stand. 

Almost there, I thought. I saw the board that had been over the tunnel and I almost pushed it before remembering I hadn’t put that back when I’d descended. Someone else had.

It didn’t matter. Another minute under the earth would have killed me. I bent my legs, aimed my head, and leaped out, smashing the board as I went.

“Crystal!” Dr. Himmel yelled.

I landed on my chest and passed out.

That’s the end of the story, there. Dr. Himmel took me to the hospital and they puzzled about my injuries before shrugging and passing over the painkillers. They had the students uncover the hole in the cell the next day but didn’t find my staircase. Just a shallow depression, they said, like everything beneath had been swallowed by the earth. I never returned to that chapel and I never will. Sometimes still in my dreams I can feel the earth squeeze around me. A great and terrible love like that will never leave.


End file.
